The Senate Intelligence Committee has approved a package of changes to the security clearance process designed to address longstanding issues with the process of issuing and renewing those clearances, which are required for many federal jobs,
Sponsors said the changes would “modernize our antiquated security clearance process, reduce the background investigation inventory of more than 700,000 cases, and bring greater accountability to the system,” which GAO earlier this year added to its list of federal programs vulnerable to waste, abuse and mismanagement.
Provisions added on a bipartisan basis to a pending reauthorizing bill for the intelligence community would:
* promote information sharing between and among government agencies and industry;
* require prompt reciprocity for recognizing clearances among agencies;
* switch to a continuous evaluation model instead of standard periodic re-investigations for 90 percent of clearance holders;
* require consistent treatment of government and contract personnel in the clearance system and * set a government-wide policy for interim clearances; and
* emphasize the use of innovative techniques and technologies for verifying information.
